Page 57

Ella is waiting in the lobby when Frank comes in.

She dreads the impending conversation, but will do what has to be done.

It would be worse if she liked Frank.

She’s tried to do that and failed, but until the last couple of days she respected him.

In a way she respects him still.

He is fiercely dedicated to the job, to getting justice for the woman he calls “poor Miss Yvonne.” It’s just that his dedication has crossed a line and when it did, it turned into something else.

He gives her a smile, showing those eroded teeth that really need caps.

The thick triangle of his widow’s peak is disarranged, as if he’s been running a hand through it.

Perhaps pulling at it.

“Let’s go to my so-called suite.

It’s not great—the only view is of the parking lot—but it fits the expense account.”

Ella follows.

She doesn’t know why he’s formed such a fierce connection with the Wicker girl—or is it Coughlin he’s made a connection with?—but she knows it’s put pressure on some fundamental crack in his personality.

What was once a hairline is now a fissure.

He unlocks the door.

She goes in ahead of him and stops, looking around the suite’s boxy little living room.

“What’s up with the folding chairs?”

“Nothing.

I just… nothing.”

He goes to the two in the living room and claps them shut.

He goes into the bedroom and comes back with two more.

He leans them against the wall beside the TV.

“I have to take those back to the business center.

Been meaning to.

Want a soft drink? There’s plenty in the minibar.”

“No, thank you.”

“Is it Coughlin? Did he let something slip?”

“I didn’t talk to him.”

Jalbert frowns.

“I specifically asked you to re-interview him, Ella.” Then the frown lightens.

“Was it Becky? The girlfriend? Or the daughter! Did she—”

“Listen, Frank.

There’s no easy way to say this.

You have to step away from the case.

That’s for starters.”

He’s giving her a quizzical little smile.

He has no idea what she’s talking about.

“Then it’s time for you to retire.

You’ve got your twenty years.

Twenty and more.”

“I don’t—”

“And get some professional help.”

The little smile is still there.

“You’re talking nonsense, Ella.

I’m not going to retire.

Not even thinking about it.

What I’m going to do—what we’re going to do—is collar Danny Coughlin and put him behind bars for the rest of his life.”

She’s surprised by fury, but later she’ll think it was there all along.

“What you’re doing is risking any chance we have of making a case against him! You outed him to Plains Truth, Frank!”

The smile is fading.

“What gave you that crazy idea?”

“It’s not crazy, it’s a fact.

You outed him and you outed yourself with your counting thing.

At the end of the message you left, you said fifteen.

It had nothing to do with anything… except when you add the number of choices on the menu together, one to five, you get fifteen.”

Now the smile is gone.

“On the basis of one number you jump to the conclusion that I—”

“Sometimes a random number pops out of your mouth—half the time you don’t even know you’re doing it.

That’s what happened on the recording Peter Andersson played for me.

I heard it.

You can hear it, too, if you want to.

I’ve got it on my phone.”

His lips part in a grin, showing those eroded teeth.

He grinds them, she thinks.

Of course he does.

“I wouldn’t want to report you for these false accusations, Ella.

You’ve been a good partner, couldn’t ask for a better one.

But if you persist, I’ll have to.

There’s no way you could have recognized the voice that made that call—that anybody could recognize it—because it was disguised by some gadget.”

“Yes.

It was.

But how do you know that?”

He blinks and there’s the briefest of hesitations.

Then he says, “Because I asked him.

Andersson.

I interviewed him.”

“Not at any time when I was with you.”

“No, from here.

On the phone.”

“Will he confirm that?”

“I’m confirming it to you right now.”

“Nevertheless, I’ll ask him.

If I have to.

And we both know what he’ll say, don’t we?”

Jalbert doesn’t reply.

He’s looking at her as if she were a stranger.

And probably right now that’s just how he feels.

She points to the chairs.

“Do you count those? Or maybe set them up and count the steps between them?”

“I think you better leave.”

“I see your lips moving sometimes when you’re counting.

There’s even a name for it.

Arithmomania.”

“Get out.

Think about what you’re saying and we’ll talk when you’re not… not all wound up.”

Davis is suddenly too tired to stand.

Who knew how exhausting confrontations of this sort could be? She sits and puts her open purse on the little desk.

Her phone is inside, recording.

“You also planted drugs in Coughlin’s truck.

At the high school.”

He recoils as if she had struck at him with her fist.

“That’s an outrageous accusation!”

“It was outrageous that you did it.

Coughlin got suspicious when the kid who works with him saw you park in back instead of in the faculty lot.

Coughlin searched his truck, found the dope, and turned it over to me.”

“What? When?”

“I met him at a coffee shop in Great Bend after the meeting where he challenged us to arrest him.

Which we could not do then and can’t now, as I’m sure you found out in Wichita.”

“He’s a liar! And you went behind my back! Thanks, partner!”

She flushes.

She can’t help it.

Jalbert is running his hands through his thick mat of receding hair.

“If there were drugs in his truck, he planted them himself.

He’s sly, oh boy, is he ever.

And you actually believed his story?” Jalbert shakes his head.

His tone is pitying, but what she sees in his eyes is bare unvarnished fury.

Be careful of this man, she thinks, Danny was right about that.

“I had no idea you were so credulous, Ella.

Has he convinced you of his dream story, too? Are you on his side now?”

“I’ve spoken to Trooper Calten.”

That stops him.

“Coughlin saw his name tag.

I called Calten and told him I knew who set up the plant and the search.

I said I’d keep his participation quiet if he told me what his role was. He did.”

Jalbert goes to the window, looks out, then comes back to her.

“I didn’t want him for the dope.

I wanted him for Miss Yvonne.

I wanted him locked up so I could turn the screws.

Where’s the dope now?”

“In a safe place.” That last question is a tiny bit frightening.

She doesn’t really believe Frank would hurt her, but he’s not right.

There’s no question of that.

He goes to the window again and comes back again.

His lips are moving.

He’s counting.

Does he even know he’s doing it? She doesn’t think so.

“He killed her.

Raped her and killed her.

Coughlin.

You know he did.”

She thinks of Coughlin asking her about her cross—did she wear it just for show, or was she a believer? Then he asked her if she could believe in God but not his dream.

“Frank, listen carefully.

In this context it no longer matters whether he killed her or not.

Here in this room all that matters is you telling me you’re going to write an email to Don Tishman saying you need to take a leave of absence for personal reasons and you’re planning to retire.”

“Never!” He’s clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Either that or I go to Tishman and tell him what you’ve done.

The call to Andersson might not get you fired, but the dope thing certainly will.

More, it will muddy up any case we might be able to make against Danny Coughlin so completely that even that smalltown lawyer Ball could get him off.”

“You’d do that?”

“You did it!” Davis cries, standing up.

“You screwed the case, you screwed yourself, and you screwed me, as well! Look at the mess you made!”

“We can’t let him get away,” Jalbert says.

He’s looking around the room, eyes not settling anywhere.

“He did it.”

“If you believe that, don’t fuck up any chance we have of nailing him.

I’m leaving now.

It’s a big decision, I know.

Sleep on it.”

“Sleep?” he says, and laughs. “Sleep!”

“I’ll call you tomorrow morning.

See how you feel.

But the choice is pretty clear, it seems to me.

Step down and we still have a chance of making a case against Coughlin.

There’ll be no nasty mess about planted evidence and you get to keep your pension.”

“Do you think I care about my pension?” he shouts.

Cords stand out on his neck.

Ella keeps her eyes locked on his.

She’s afraid to take them away.

“You might not care about it now, in the heat of the moment, but you will later.

And I know you still care about Yvonne Wicker.

Think carefully, Frank.

I’ll let this slide if you step away, but it all comes out if you don’t, and oy vey, the stench.”

She walks to the door.

It’s one of the longest walks of her life because she keeps expecting him to come after her.

He doesn’t.

In the hallway, with the door closed, she lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

She starts to zip her purse closed when from behind her comes a crash.

Something just broke.

Does she want to know what? She doesn’t.

Ella walks slowly and steadily down the hall.

In her car, she lowers her head and cries.

There was a moment there, just a moment, when she really thought he might kill her.